2024 Martinsville Playoff Advance

FRED HANYON PHOTO

MARTINSVILLE 2

Friday, November 1 — NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, 6 p.m. ET (FS1)

Saturday, November 2 — NASCAR Xfinity Series, 4 p.m. ET (CW)

Sunday, November 3 — NASCAR Cup Series, 2 p.m. ET (NBC)

NASCAR will set the Championship 4 in all three national series this
weekend when Martinsville Speedway hosts its second event of the 2024
season. This will mark the fifth straight season that the half mile
paperclip serves as the penultimate race and begins with Friday
night’s Craftsman Truck Series event. The Xfinity and Cup finalists
will be decided on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.

LOGANO GEARING UP FOR CHAMPIONSHIP 4

Joey Logano has already locked up his spot in the Championship 4 after
winning at Las Vegas two weeks ago. This will mark his sixth time in the
Championship 4 with all of those appearances coming in even years (2014,
‘16, ‘18, ‘20, ‘22 and ‘24). The two-time Cup Series champion
will look to become the 10th driver to win at least three titles and
join the likes of three-time winners Tony Stewart, Cale Yarborough,
Darrell Waltrip, David Pearson and Lee Petty; four-time champion Jeff
Gordon; and seven-time titleholders Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt and
Richard Petty.

BLANEY CONTINUES ROUND OF 8 BATTLE

After last weekends near miss, Ryan Blaney comes into Sunday’s race at
Martinsville Speedway in seventh place in the playoff standings, 38
points below the cut line. And while his deficit may seem large, he’s
likely one of the favorites to win this weekend and repeat his victory
from a year ago. That’s because Martinsville has undoubtedly been one of
Blaney’s best tracks. This will mark his 18th career start at the
track and thanks to his nine top five and 11 top 10 finishes, his
average finish is a sparkling 8.8, which is his best among tracks where
he has at least 10 starts.

LOGANO LIKES MARTINSVILLE

No track on the NASCAR Cup Series circuit has been better for Joey
Logano when it comes to qualifying than Martinsville Speedway. Logano
enters this weekend with an average starting position of 8.3, which is
his second among all tracks in which he has more than 10 starts (Las
Vegas is 7.9 in 23 starts). In 31 career races at the half-mile short
track, Logano has one win, 11 top-5 and 19 top-10 finishes, giving him
an average finishing position of 10.8. The figure ranks as his
third-best track (10 or more races) with only Las Vegas (9.5) and
Richmond (10.0) being better.

RYAN BLANEY: “Martinsville is a track I love. I’ve loved it ever
since I was a kid. I grew up a little bit south of there and went there
a lot as a child and watched my dad race and watched a lot of these
great racers run around that place, and I’ve always wanted to win there
and get a grandfather clock and we were able to put it all together last
year. That race, to me, is kind of like Vegas. I feel like we’ve had a
couple slip away from us. I feel like we should have two or three
grandfather clocks, but sometimes things just don’t work out for you,
so, it was nice to go into that race last year – even though we were
sitting fairly good on points we didn’t care about that, we just
wanted to go win the race. Being able to put together kind of the
dominating day that we did, especially the last two-thirds of that race
was a huge statement and it put us in a really great head space going
into Phoenix and we were able to perform there. I love that place to my
core. A lot of special reasons behind it off track and on track, so
hopefully we can get another grandfather clock. That would be pretty
special.”

JOEY LOGANO: “Martinsville is probably the perfect place for being an
elimination race. I know NASCAR thinks about this stuff when they put
the schedule together and they look at Martinsville and think,
‘Everyone is going to be really close to each other. There’s going to be
full contact. A lot of things can happen.’ You look at all the cutoff
races that we have. Bristol, cars are all over each other. The Roval,
the tightest road course we go to, and the cars are all over each other.
Martinsville it’s the same thing, so you’ve got to expect drama when
you go there. Some people will be in do-or-die scenarios and what are
they willing to do?”

BLANEY GOING FOR MARTINSVILLE REPEAT

Ryan Blaney would like nothing better than a repeat of a year ago when
he won the Martinsville playoff race and clinched a spot in the
Championship 4. Blaney, who passed Aric Almirola with 22 laps to go,
came into the race with a 10-point cushion and promptly extended that by
finished second in Stage 1 and winning Stage 2. In all, Blaney led four
times for 145 laps in winning for the third time, which matched his
career-best for a single season.

CUSTER ON THE BUBBLE AGAIN

For the second straight year, Cole Custer finds himself on the bubble
heading into the final race in the Round of 8 at Martinsville Speedway.
This time, he’s sitting fourth in the standings, 28 points ahead of
fifth-place Chandler Smith and only seven behind third-place Justin
Allgaier. A year ago, Custer was third overall, but was only three
points above the cut line. He eventually went on to advance to the
Championship 4 and win his first title one week later at Phoenix
Raceway. This will be his fourth career series start at Martinsville,
where he finished eighth earlier this year. He also made six NASCAR Cup
Series starts, but never finished better than 13th.

MAJESKI GOING FOR SECOND CAREER CHAMPIONSHIP 4 BERTH

After a solid runner-up finish last weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway,
Ty Majeski comes into Martinsville holding down the fourth and final
transfer position in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series playoff
standings. Majeski, advanced to the Championship 4 for the first time in
2022, is 22 points above the cut line and 16 points behind third place
Christian Eckes. The Wisconsin native sat on the pole earlier this year
at Martinsville and finished a career-best second in only his third
series start.